If the supplied FitsChan currently contains any tables, then this function returns a pointer to a KeyMap. Each entry in the KeyMap is a pointer to a FitsTable holding the data for a FITS binary table. The key used to access each entry is the FITS extension name in which the table should be stored.

Tables can be present in a FitsChan as a result either of using the AST_PUTTABLE (or AST_PUTTABLES) method to store existing tables in the FitsChan, or of using the AST_WRITE method to write a FrameSet to the FitsChan. For the later case, if the FitsChan "TabOK" attribute is positive and the FrameSet requires a look-up table to describe one or more axes, then the " -TAB" algorithm code described in FITS-WCS paper III is used and the table values are stored in the FitsChan in the form of a FitsTable object (see the documentation for the " TabOK" attribute).

RESULT = AST_GETTABLES( THIS, STATUS )

THIS = INTEGER (Given)

STATUS = INTEGER (Given and Returned)

AST_GETTABLES = INTEGER

• A null Object pointer (AST__NULL) will be returned if this function is invoked with STATUS set to an error value, or if it should fail for any reason.